I walked up to the fifth floor
Just a deliveryman
A crate of photographic film
Grown heavy in my hands
She warned “You drop those canisters
I’ll surely have your head
The Rolli is a fickle beast
The film so hard to thread”
Hard to thread
The way she said it, I believed her

Oh Evelene
Do you see your dreams
In the eyepiece of a
Rolleiflex 4 by 4
No man can compete
Or hold that perfect pose
The way you need
Forever now, forever more
For Evelene

Dodging Sinn Fein bullets
Or the Battle of Ballentyne
When insurrection needs a photo
That’s where you’ll find Evelene
The telephone would chatter
Just as we were settling down
It’s the Telegraph Gazette
And she’s needed out of town
Out of town
She was only half here anyway

Oh Evelene
All your dreams
In a bakelite box
With a bellows and a reflex lens
Was I ever in the frame
I suppose that all depends
On what that means
Forever now, Forever more
For Evelene
So you married a well-heeled barrister
From up ‘round Sussex town
But no proper gent would ever stand
For all that running around
So you gave him a lovely daughter
And a couple of handsome sons
And you saved a gilded ball and chain
For yourself when it all was done

And the Rolleiflex is collecting dust
Up on the second floor
The bellows cracked, the lens is chipped
The film no good no more
No more good
Covered with an old bedspread
Oh Evelene
Didn’t I read the headline
In the telegraph Gazette?
They found your smiling baby girl
Giggling and soaking wet

She’d wandered off for two days
With her Brownie in the pouring rain
And all your world was frantic
For her safe return again
Save for you
So strangely understanding

Oh Evelene
Do you dare to dream
In a red-lit darkroom
Where the rest of the world can’t see?
Children at your knees
And still you feel the chill of incomplete
Forever now, forever more
For Evelyne

VG - vocal, guitar
Darol Anger - fiddle
Àine Minogue - vocal